U.S. News & World Report ran a story last week on Sister Cities International, introducing it with the fact that in 1985, President Xi Jinping visited Iowa on a Sister Cities International exchange.

“He stayed close with the family that hosted him as a young delegate from Hebei province, and this year, a soybean farm opened in Hebei, modeled after the one run by another family who hosted him on a return trip as vice president in 2012.”

The 2012 trip was profiled in this Daily Mail piece. This was one example of an exchange-diplomacy-alum-turned-world-leader that I didn’t expect. I love that Xi Jinping learned about agriculture in America’s heartland, and how his 2012 itinerary included Muscatine, Iowa alongside a visit to the White House (this New York Times article about the Washington part of the visit didn’t mention it). It’s particularly fascinating because the traditionally Republican farmers don’t support Trump’s trade war with China–those same soybean farmers that now-President Xi Jinping stayed with, who voted for Trump, are now taking a big hit (and getting a bailout), due to Trump’s trade war.

Sister Cities International was one of several exchange diplomacy efforts initiated by President Eisenhower in the 1950s. He believed in the ability of citizen diplomacy to enhance and even surpass traditional diplomacy: